Neutral shipping

“ Neither producers, shippers, merchants nor consumers have any slightest interest in the national allegiance of the carriers of their freight, except such as may artificially be induced by discriminatory shipping regulations. In all but the name—in time of peace—the world's merchant shipping already comes near being so neutralised, and the slight further simplification required to leave it on a neutral peace footing would be little else than a neglect of such vexatious discrimination as is still in force. ”

“ The shipping interest, also, has suffered severely, still more severely, probably, than commerce. If any thing should strike us with astonishment, it is that the navigation of the United States should be able to sustain itself. Without any government protection whatever, it goes abroad to challenge competition with the whole world; and, in spite of all obstacles, it has yet been able to maintain eight hundred thousand tons in the employment of foreign trade. ”

“ The elimination of enemy advantage from our trade and, to a considerable extent, from that of the world, the securing and conserving of commodities essential to ourselves and those associated with us in the war, the bringing of shipping generally into the services most useful to us—these results can not be accurately stated or appraised at the present time, nor have they been accomplished by any single act or agreement. ”

“ Commerce with foreign powers is prosecuted at an incalculable disadvantage. Our shipping, which in times past has been the pride of the Nation, whitening every sea with its sails, is reduced in number and value. Driven from the ocean by pirate flags during the Rebellion, it cannot struggle back to its ancient supremacy until the accustomed laws of trade once more resume their rule. ”

“ This is done by laying a tariff upon imports. But the American shipping is now and always has been protected that far—absolutely protected, in fact, by prohibition. The importation of ships has been forbidden, and the use of foreign ships in the "home market" has been reserved to home-built ships for nearly 100 years. If "protection" could enable any industry to expand from the "home market" to the foreign, then the coasting trade industry should have expanded long since over all the world. ”

“ Lastly, the navy, once our pride and glory, and the only certain safeguard either against the dangers of foreign invasion, or the blockade of our harbours and ruin of our commerce, is fast melting away; for the reciprocity system established in 1823, and the repeal of the navigation laws in 1849, have given such encouragement to foreign shipping in preference to our own, that in a few years, if the same system continue, more than half of our whole commerce will have passed into the hands of foreign states, which may any day become hostile ones. ”

“ SHIPPING. Our present dependence upon foreign shipping for nine-tenths of our foreign-carrying trade is a great loss to the industry of this country. It is also a serious danger to our trade, for its sudden withdrawal in the event of European war would seriously cripple our expanding foreign commerce. The national defense and naval efficiency of this country, moreover, supply a compelling reason for legislation which will enable us to recover our former place among the trade carrying fleets of the world. ”

“ If the Legislature should decide that it was no longer necessary to keep up the Navigation Laws as a means of national security, no doubt the consumers of foreign articles could purchase at a cheaper rate, since this would be the natural consequence of admitting imports in the ships of foreign nations. ”

“ It is evident, from this summary, that the decline of British and growth of foreign shipping will be so rapid, under the system of Free Trade in Shipping, that the time is not far distant when the foreign tonnage employed in conducting our trade will be superior in amount to the British. ”

“ Why are we evidently and undeniably losing the empire of the seas, by the rapid and portentous increase of the foreign and decline of the English shipping, in carrying on our own trade? Only because freights must, it is thought, be cheapened as well as everything else; and the independence of the country is a trifling consideration to a fall of a farthing in the pound, in the transport of some articles, for the benefit of the Manchester trader. ”

“ We oppose the pretence that discriminating duties will promote shipping; that scheme is an invitation to commercial warfare upon the United States, un-American in the light of our great commercial treaties, offering no gain whatever to American shipping, while greatly increasing ocean freights on our agricultural and manufactured products. ”

“ Under modern conditions, however, home trade is but a part of the business of a country bordering on the sea. Foreign necessaries or luxuries must be brought to its ports, either in its own or in foreign ships, which will return, bearing in exchange the products of the country, whether they be the fruits of the earth or the works of men’s hands; and it is the wish of every nation that this shipping business should be done by its own vessels. ”

“ To make rules and regulations affecting shipping in the foreign trade not in conflict with law in order to adjust or meet general or special conditions unfavorable to shipping in the foreign trade, whether in any particular trade or upon any particular route or in commerce generally and which arise out of or result from foreign laws, rules, or regulations or from competitive methods or practices employed by owners, operators, agents, or masters of vessels of a foreign country ”

“ But this proportion, such as it is, is solely upheld by our colonial trade, which, as already shown, employs nearly 2,000,000 tons of our shipping. But for it, the encroachment of foreign on British shipping would appear in such alarming colours as to strike the most inconsiderate. It is the rapid growth of our colonial trade under the protective system which has alone concealed the ravages effected on it by free trade under the reciprocity. ”

“ The commerce of the United States with foreign nations, and especially the export of domestic productions, has of late years largely increased; but the greater portion of this trade is conducted in foreign vessels. The importance of enlarging our foreign trade, and especially by direct and speedy interchange with countries on this continent, can not be overestimated; and it is a matter of great moment that our own shipping interest should receive, to the utmost practical extent, the benefit of our commerce with other lands. ”

“ To quote the most recent example, about the middle of last century the United States of America fought a well-contested struggle with us for the carrying trade of the world. Shortly after the abolition of the navigation laws, the competition was very severe, and United States ships had obtained almost exclusive possession of the China trade, and of the trade between Europe and North America, and in the year3 1850 the total tonnage of the shipping of the States was 3,535,434, against 4,232,960 tons owned by Great Britain. ”

“ In this work it is shown conclusively, that shipping grows with protection, because protection tends to promote immigration, or the import of men, the most valuable of commodities, and thus to diminish the cost of sending to market the less valuable ones, grain, tobacco, and cotton. ”

“ The other great nations have not hesitated to adopt the required means to develop their shipping as a factor in national defense and as one of the surest and speediest means of obtaining for their producers a share in foreign markets. Like vigilance and effort on our part cannot fail to improve our situation, which is regarded with humiliation at home and with surprise abroad. Even the seeming sacrifices, which at the beginning may be involved, will be offset later by more than equivalent gains. ”

“ I use the word “vain” because it is clear, if the experience of other nations, or the experience of your own nation is of any value, that all the money paid to “encourage shipping” is actually lost, for French ships, with all this protection, do not increase at the same rate as other nations, or at the same rates in the branches of your own trade, where they are guarded with unusual care, as they do in those branches where they are thrown into competition with the shipping of other countries. ”

“ How stands a nation to which the native mercantile shipping, carrying-trade, is a distinctly minor interest, and therefore does not largely affect the question of transportation? This being maintained by neutrals, the accretion of national wealth by circulation may go on little impaired by hostilities. ”

“ Though materially assisted in their efforts to extend and develop their shipping by the seafaring habits of the people, by the natural maritime resources of their own country, and by the advantages they derived as neutrals during the war which so long raged in Europe, they were ever ready to encourage increased intercourse with distant nations, in spite of the opposition of the maritime States to those liberal measures which they had so frequently propounded, and in which they had been too often thwarted. ”

“ To those maritime questions I have long devoted my attention, and I have often been struck at the circuitous course which ships, by the laws which nations adopted, have been obliged to follow. The ocean was meant to be free to mankind, but one nation by its laws dictates the course which the ships of other nations must follow; another nation, by way of retaliation, lays down the only course which it will allow its competitors to adopt. Thus we see ships, for instance, allowed to follow one track with cargo, but compelled to return by the same track, in ballast. ”

“ The full appreciation of the opportunities which our front on the Pacific Ocean gives to commerce with Japan, China, and the East Indies, with Australia and the island groups which lie along these routes of navigation, should inspire equal efforts to appropriate to our own shipping and to administer by our own capital a due proportion of this trade. Whatever modifications of our regulations of trade and navigation may be necessary or useful to meet and direct these impulses to the enlargement of our exchanges and of our carrying trade I am sure the wisdom of Congress will be ready to supply. ”

“ National vessels shall be liable to the same penalties on coming from a foreign port, and entering any of those not open to foreign commerce, if found shipping any effects whatever for a foreign country, and when they are found loading or unloading any kind of goods whatever at ports or places not open to foreign commerce or to the coasting trade. ”

“ On referring to the Customs’ entries and clearances, it will be found that out of the 5,000,000 tons of British shipping annually so entered, 2,000,000 came from our own colonies and dependencies, but that no less than 3,000,000 of British shipping are entered from foreign countries (“Hear, hear!” and confusion) , thus proving that our trade with foreign countries is much more valuable to us than the trade with our own possessions (cries of “Question!”) ”

“ Almost every commercial nation reserves to its own subjects a monopoly of its coasting trade, and a countervailing privilege in favour of American shipping is contemplated in the whole legislation of the United States on this subject. It is not to give the vessel an American character that the license is granted ”

“ Now, though both countries have every reason to be much satisfied with that treaty, the want is to me very apparent. Free navigation must accompany freedom of commerce. The ramifications of commerce are so numerous and the competition so close that the slightest hindrance to its natural flow, or the smallest increase of freight, either retards, paralyses, or destroys vast branches of it. The trade which your people are now carrying on with England and its colonies and possessions is greatly retarded by the restrictions of the Navigation Laws. ”

“ No sooner is the merchant prepared for foreign ports, with the treasures which this new world kindly offers to his acceptance, than it is announced to him, that they are shut against American shipping, or opened under oppressive regulations. ”

“ We still lay claim to the carrying trade of the Far East; but the figures, which support our pre-eminence in this direction are totally unreliable. If the true conditions were made manifest, it would be seen that so far from leading the shipping of the world in the Far East, Great Britain could claim but a small proportion of the freights carried. Although we may own the ships, neither our markets nor our manufactures are associated with their cargoes. It would be well if the public could grasp this feature of the China trade. ”

“ These restrictive laws often compel merchants to buy what they require, at greatly enhanced prices, articles not produced in the country from whence they are imported; as is the case in your importations from England of cotton, sugar, coffee, hemp, jute, silk, foreign wool, and numerous other articles, all arising in a great measure from the fact that the differential duties [315] imposed by your Navigation Laws oblige you to import foreign manufactures or produce, either in your own ships or in the ships of the country where the articles were produced. ”

“ As long as the system lasts it works down, and the statistics show, very naturally, that fewer and fewer ships are built in the country, and that less and less of the carrying trade is carried on under the national flag. In view of the three different and sometimes adverse interests which are connected by their relation to the shipping question, it is not strange that when the representatives of those interests meet to try to consider that question, there should simply be a scramble between them to see which can capture the convention. ”